I am happy for my friends and family. Needless to say, Arsenal is a very strong thread that binds us. The club has been in my family for over 100 years- grandparents, parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. I met my wife through this club and we spent a portion of our morning showing our five-year old daughter videos and pictures from last night and she has gone to school in her Arsenal jacket today.
I am happy for Andrew, Elliot, Paul, Clive, Scott, Phil, Jamie, Aidan and Jason and all the people I am blessed to make Arsenal content with. Ever since I was old enough to work out that I wasn’t going to be able to play for Arsenal (I spent a school holiday training with Crystal Palace U10s in 1993 and that made things pretty clear), all I have ever wanted to do is to write and talk about Arsenal. I am incredibly fortunate to be able to do it with such great people.
I am happy for Bukayo Saka. The academy kid who has been with Arsenal since the age of seven, who rose through the ranks and took the team on his shoulders. He broke into the first team at a pretty low ebb for the club, he offered hope and light when times felt dark. Now he is probably the main reason that the team will hoist the Premier League trophy on Sunday afternoon.
I am happy for Ben White. Someone else who came to Arsenal when few of us envisaged where all of this was headed. Someone who put his body on the line over a number of years for this club, who has held his tongue and retained his dignity while many around him did not show him the same courtesy. I am so glad he will get to hold that trophy in his hands.
I am happy for William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes. I have been blessed to see some of the finest defenders the game has ever produced in Arsenal shirts over the years. I grew up with an Arsenal defence that was so formidable that we simply refer to them as ‘the famous back five’ and everyone knows what we mean. I never imagined I would see a defence that formidable again. But I have seen it. We have seen it. And we will tell our sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters about Gabriel and Saliba for decades to come.
I am happy for Martin Odegaard, someone who I think has led this group with such distinction and such dignity. He also joined this club, this project, at a low ebb. A child prodigy who, like so many others, found his star extinguished in the glare of Real Madrid and who came to Arsenal to rebuild himself and help to rebuild this club. He will lift the Premier League trophy on Sunday and receive a final, glorious vindication for the decision he made to put his prime years into the hands of Mikel Arteta and Arsenal.
I am happy for Leandro Trossard. A signing that was supposed to be a silver medal who will wear a big shiny gold medal around his neck this weekend. A player who, like the manager, came to us in his late prime and looked absolutely determined to make up for lost time. Never has an Arsenal player been so synonymous with the word ‘clutch’ and he did it all while looking like he hasn’t slept for 17 years. Can you picture what Leandro Trossard smiling looks like? I don’t think I can. I hope he got his head down and wrenched those rigid facial muscles into a hearty, shit eating grin this morning.
I am happy for Nicolas Jover. While the world bitched and whinged and moaned and whined about…goals being scored from corners, he got his head down and wrung every single drop of moisture from a marginal gain. A marginal gain that became a significant gain and made fans of every club in the country fill their briefs every time Arsenal won a corner. I love how much it annoys people. It sustains me. Set piece again, ole ole.
I am thinking about some of the people we lost along the way, during this long 22-year pause. People like Dave (Goonerholic) who did so much to turn this into a truly global community. People like my mate Gary Read, who we lost last summer and who wanted so desperately to see this. Who took himself to some games at the end of last season that he probably wasn’t in condition to go to because he believed this team and this manager would get it over the line. This one was for you and your family, Gaz.
I am happy for people like Ian Wright and Martin Keown, who stared down some of the more ridiculous anti-Arsenal sentiment that has become so prevalent in our mainstream broadcast media. Who braved ridicule and provided sanity and represented the voice of the fans under fire.
I am happy for Mikel Arteta. A man who picked this club up when it was cowering behind a dustbin in an alleyway. He was never linked with any other managerial position, something about this club deeply branded him during his time as a player and it’s so obvious that he has dreamed about lifting this club back to the very top for longer than any of us realise.
His football intelligence, his utter, utter relentlessness, to keep going and going and going, to keep cajoling and probing when a lesser man would have been crushed by three consecutive second placed finishes, to keep squeezing every last drop out of every single second of a football match.
He has pushed this bolder back up the hill and elevated the club almost through nervous energy alone. He has faced ridicule and hyperbole and not given a single fuck about any of it. He will go down in history as one of our finest ever managers and I am convinced that this is not the culmination of the journey. I think this is the start of something, not the end. And that is down to the ambition, charisma and tactical brain of this manager.
I am happy for us. For you. We are not everyone’s second team. We are not the darlings of the football world. For some reason a lot of people seem to prefer nation state sponsored sportswashing projects who have achieved their success through *redacted*. We have been told we mustn’t enjoy, we mustn’t celebrate, we must ‘get back down the tunnel’, that we are guilty of some kind of moral aberration because our team is good at corners and takes its defensive duties seriously.
Well, fuck those guys. Today is ours. It’s yours. And there is not a single thing anyone can do or say about it. They are going to have to suck it up, buttercup. We deserve this, you deserve this. Arsenal has become a truly global phenomenon since 2004; it is not just the streets of North London recovering from a tidal wave of discarded champagne bottles this morning. Last night, the world shook under the weight of our joy and the shock waves will travel for a little while yet. We did it. Together.
